You won’t see heavy metals like arsenic, lead, and mercury listed on your beauty product labels. But that doesn’t mean your skin care and makeup is free of them.

In fact, your favorite lip gloss may be loaded with arsenic and other known toxins.

A Canadian environmental group recently had 49 popular beauty products tested for heavy metals, and was surprised to find just how many traditional beauty products (ie: chemically formulated ones) contained these “unintentional” ingredients. Lead was detected in 96 percent of the products, arsenic in 20 percent, and cadmium in 51 percent, according to the Montreal Gazette, which published the report findings.

If these concentrations were found in milk, there would be a nationwide uproar if not a product recall. So why are these toxins tolerated in skin care?

HOW DO BEAUTY COMPANIES GET AWAY WITH THIS? Traditional beauty brands like to say that these ingredients appear in amounts so small they don’t warrant mention on product labels (the FDA agrees), nor do they cause much harm. (Although no traditional beauty brand or the FDA has tested this claim.) But this small study finds that there are considerably more heavy metals in products than companies have let on.

Researchers who tested different types of popular lipsticks found at drug and department stores have found levels of toxic metals that can potentially lead to health problems. This study of metal content in lip products suggests potential public health concerns that have here to now not been addressed, and it seems that these beauty companies have been long ignoring the facts about their own products!

In another recent study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health enlisted a group of 12 girls between the ages of 14 and 19 who were part of an Asian youth group and lived in low-income neighborhoods of Oakland, Calif. They were asked to record the brands and product names of all lipsticks and lip glosses they regularly carry and use at home. The researchers then took this list to stores and purchased the products, 32 in all (8 lipsticks, 24 lip glosses). Back at the lab, researchers conducted spectrometry tests to determine the contents of the lipsticks.

They found detectable levels of lead, cadmium, chromium, aluminum and five other metals in the products.

Lead, a neurotoxin, was found in 24 products — 75 percent of all tested — and all examined products contained the metals manganese, titanium and aluminum.

Half the products contained lead in concentrations higher than 0.1. parts per million cap the U.S. Food and Drug Administration places on candy frequently eaten by small children.

Concentrations of metals varied greatly across products. For example, one product had the highest chromium concentration (9.72 ppm) and the second highest concentrations of cadmium, manganese, and lead (2.16, 35.3, and 1.25 ppm, respectively). The researchers did not find a clear pattern to predict toxin levels in terms of brands, color, whether it was lip gloss or lipstick or in the cost of the products, which ranged from about $6 to $24.

The researchers also analyzed potential risk for toxin exposure by comparing how often the lip products are used to the concentration of the toxins found in the products. Results were measured in term of average use and heavy use.
They determined the estimated chromium intake from 10 products tested exceeded acceptable daily intake levels when measuring average use. Chromium is a known human carcinogen, according to the researchers, that has been linked to lung cancer and stomach tumors through inhaling the metal or swallowing it.

Heavy use of lip products could lead to too much aluminum exposure for one of the products tested, and too much chromium for 22 products tested, and potentially dangerous levels of manganese in 7 of the products tested.

Estimated intakes for lead were well below their acceptable daily intake levels, even for high use, but the researchers noted children may be at greater risk from exposure since lead’s effects are more pronounced in developing kids.

“Just finding these metals isn’t the issue; it’s the levels that matter,” S. Katharine Hammond, professor of environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley and lead investigator of the study, said in a press release. “Some of the toxic metals are occurring at levels that could possibly have an effect in the long term.”

The researchers say lipsticks and lip glosses may pose specific risks for consumers, because they are swallowed and absorbed little by little by those wearing them. They recommend blotting the lipstick after applying to reduce exposure, and called for tighter regulation of the cosmetic industry in the United States.

HOW DO BEAUTY COMPANIES GET AWAY WITH THIS? Traditional beauty brands like to say that these ingredients appear in amounts so small they don’t warrant mention on product labels (the FDA agrees), nor do they cause much harm. (Although no traditional beauty brand or the FDA has tested this claim.) But this small study finds that there are considerably more heavy metals in products than companies have let on.

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT THIS? Considering that lip products are so easily ingested, and that beauty companies have no incentive to test for or declare the presence of these dangerous ingredients in their products, it may be time to treat yourself to a few new natural lip glosses from the wide variety now out on the market.